Ashoka is the largest network of social entrepreneurs worldwide, with nearly 3,000 Fellows in 70 countries. We have provided start-up financing, professional support services, and connections to a global network across business and social sectors for more than 30 years. In fact, Ashoka launched the field of social entrepreneurship. And Ashoka Fellows – social entrepreneurs we've identified and supported for their systems-changing solutions to social problems -- remain at the core of our community, and their insights show us how the world is moving and what is needed next.

Bolivia native Gabriela Flores, founded Kirah Design in 2008 as a way to combat the poverty in her own country with business solutions. Her goal was to create sustainable jobs while bringing Bolivia’s beauty to the world. Kirah Design creates high-quality, eco-friendly pieces with contemporary designs from over 700 talented base-of-the-pyramid artisans. Gabriela is a member of the Agora Accelerator class of 2013, a 2013 McNulty Fellow, and winner of the 2013 Cartier Women’s Initiative Award.

Agora chatted with Flores about her experiences as a woman entrepreneur.

There has been a lot of focus on the idea that investing in women leads to greater economic development. For example, according to the Harvard Business Review, “women entrepreneurs bring in 20% more revenue with 50% less money invested.” Why do you think that is happening?

Men have traditionally been given opportunities that have made business much easier for them. Women are more hungry for opportunities. So when they receive an opportunity to obtain funds, resources, or knowledge, they work really hard to create structures and get results. They really make things happen.

This is exactly what has happened with my artisans. The women have kids to feed and education to access, so when we hire them, they work really hard with no excuses because they have their kids. Men take it for granted that they will get the job, but then we have to beg them to work and make sure they understand deadlines. Women have more needs in general, and we get more return on our women artisans.

You hire a lot of women artisans who come from a different sect of society than where you come from. What challenges do these women face?

In many communities where we work, the husbands work a lot, and they don’t ask the women to work because they have to do all the tough work of the house all day. In one community, one of the women had all of her baskets woven, and the husband burned them. In the beginning that was traumatic for me because I thought I could change that. But I had to understand how to change the situation and say, “I am here to offer an opportunity to use your talent. Instead of doing laundry or being a taxi driver, let’s try to do something with what you know.” I am trying to be really respectful of the community because their culture and their values are so different. I have learned that my goal—my mission—is to make sure I bring job opportunities to people who really want to work because there are so many people who don’t want to work. They prefer to beg for money, and they don’t want to make a change. We also make sure the women can work from their houses so they don’t abandon their kids.

What kind of change (if any) do you see happening for women in business in the next five years?

Eighty percent of women at some point quit their jobs, their dreams, or their entrepreneurial projects because they have to deal with kids who were doing poorly in school, or their parents are sick, or their husbands are too busy and cannot take care of anything. So women feel forced to quit. There is no way they can continue. Things have to change, and it has to be a systemic shift, no doubt.

At Kirah Design, many of our artisans who work at our master workshop have kids. They cannot afford to have someone take care of their kids, so they have their mom or sister help. But the kids get sick, and they go to public hospitals, which means they have wait for one day with their kids and don’t get to work. So if I am not flexible as a leader in my own company, I will have to work without these women who are really talented. So I think the whole system is changing, and people are just trying to read the signs and the new way things are developing. But you see more of this in developed countries; here it is still very new.

What are concrete ways people can support women entrepreneurs around the world?

Visibility. Provide networks. The loneliness of being an entrepreneur is awful and can be devastating if you don’t have the support of your family or someone who understands what you are trying to achieve. In the first years, nobody understands what you are trying to do. You are like a crazy person fighting for a dream that nobody can see. So organizations like Cartier are important because they give you the space to compete and not only to win—but what you win is the network, the community, the know-how, and the coaching to help you understand your business. Organizations like Agora are also critical because they help you go deep inside your organization to really understand the good things you can achieve as well as the bad things you need to eliminate immediately because they are killing your business. You need to have people with different eyes supporting you and making sure you are making the right decisions because time and money are very both limited.

Agora Partnerships just launched Accelerate Women Now (AWN), an initiative fueled by those who believe in the power and potential of women business leaders to be changemakers in their communities and across the globe. AWN aims to raise money for the Agora Women’s Scholarship fund to ensure that no woman with real potential to improve her community through entrepreneurship is deterred from participating in the Agora Accelerator due to cost.

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This post was written by Dana Warren, Communications Associate at Agora Partnerships, as part of a series on accelerating women in business. Read the first post here, the third here, and the fourth here.

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